A blog for fans of intelligent horror in fiction and film. Look here for reviews, analysis, and practical information on how to deal with demons and live with the living dead.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Troll Hunter!!!

If you are tired of those
shaky, found footage mockumentaries, well, that's too damn bad. The device is
being employed frequently these days and it is producing some of the best horror
available in years. Cloverfield, [Rec], and its American doppelganger,
Quarantine, and Paranormal Activity, were each of them very solid additions to
the horror catalog.

Now comes Troll Hunter out of
Norway. It strikes me as the best of the lot, as well as one of the freshest
and most engaging monster movies I have ever seen. I've seen a lot.

Trolljergeren is directed by
André Øvredal. The film is in Norwegian with English subtitles, though a good
bit of English is spoken by some Polish bear traffickers. I view it as a
general rule that any movie with Polish bear traffickers speaking English to
Norwegians is worth watching.

The film begins with three
college students following and filming a man they believe to be a bear poacher.
Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud) and Johana (Johana Mørck) are both very
convincing as naïve youngsters playing at the roles of investigative reporters.
Hans (Otto Jespersen), whose truck and weathered trailer they are following,
stands of course in stark contrast: older, jaded, and sporting a magnificent
beard under his wide-brimmed hat. After several attempts to shoo them away, he
decides to let them film the big secret he is in on. He is tired, of keeping
secrets among other things.As you may
guess from the clip above, he is not so much a Troll Hunter as a Troll warden.

Unlike any of the other
mockumentaries, Troll Hunter is full of gorgeous footage. A lot of their time
is spent zipping up rain splashed pavement with fjords and misty mountains
always in view. The wet realism of the scenery was one the things that kept me
watching.

One of the bits of genius in
the cinematic recipe was a taste for subtly pretty everywhere except, of
course, when a troll actually comes into view. There are a few splashes of
scientific pseudo explanations, a dash of secret government agency paranoia,
and just a pinch of supernatural spice. Let this stand for one small spoiler:
the Trolls don't like the smell of Christian blood.

The trolls themselves look as
sound about as real as any creature could that has escaped from a children's
collection of fairy tales. Since they are always up when the sun isn't, they
can blend in with the darkness or gray fog. A Darwinian adaptation? We report,
you decide. I'll just say that I can't think of large monsters that ever seemed
so real on camera.

One of the most important tasks
of dark fantasy cinema is to take the childhood ogre and make it feel real
again. Troll Hunter does this very well. I give it four stars out of four.